


Broad Shoulders

by OughtaKnowBetter



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Action/Adventure, Drama, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-02-08
Updated: 2005-02-08
Packaged: 2018-10-06 21:35:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10345053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OughtaKnowBetter/pseuds/OughtaKnowBetter
Summary: Spoilers: "The Curse".  Minor spoilers for "Prophecy" and "Rites ofPassage"Season: Occurs immediately after "The Curse"Summary: Exposure to the ribbon device has caused an unexpected sideeffect that becomes very important to the Tok’ra.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Yuma, the archivist: this work was originally archived at [Stargatefan.com](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Stargatefan.com). To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [StargateFan Archive Collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/StargateFan_Archive_Collection).

Stargate SG-1 | Gen Fanfiction | Broad Shoulders

##  Broad Shoulders

##### Written by OughtaKnowBetter  
Comments? Write to us at plkfish2@comcast.net

  * SPOILERS : occurs immediately after "The Curse". Minor spoilers for Rites of Passage and Prophecy
  * SUMMARY : Exposure to the ribbon device has caused an unexpected side effect that becomes very important to the Tok'ra.
  * PG-13 [D]



* * *

O’Neill set the small transport jet down gently on the runway of the US AirForce base in Egypt, hastily but dutifully logging in his pilot hours—had to get the time in somehow between missions to keep up his ticket. This was not the way he’d liked to do it, but the need was there, and half of his team here in Egypt.

It was Daniel. It was always Daniel.

Well, not always. Sometimes it was Carter. Or Teal’c. Or General Hammond, or his ex-wife, or, heaven help them, sometimes even O’Neill himself. But it seemed like it was always Daniel.

It had started innocently enough, Daniel going to the funeral of a colleague and mentor. It ended up with the taking of yet another Goa’uld host, this time an innocent woman and friend of Daniel’s. Carter got banged up, Doc Frasier got banged up, another archeologist/friend got crunched pretty badly, and Daniel? O’Neill breathed a sigh of relief. Frasier had radioed just as he’d taken off that Daniel had regained consciousness. The Goa’uld Osiris had slammed him with that hand-jewel thing. Last time Daniel got in the way of one of those it had taken him three days to wake up. This one, if O’Neill had gotten his time line straight, was a mere six hours. A record, of sorts.

The heat hit him, as always, with a furnace blast both welcome and shocking after the cool mountain air of Cheyenne. Beside him Teal’c drew in a long breath, savoring the airborne aromas of this different land. What did the Jaffa notice most, O’Neill wondered. Was it the light desert sands that reached far beyond the base and rolled off into the distance? Or perhaps it was the headdress that the Jaffa donned in order to go among the Tau’re. The white cloth encircled by a hand band seemed tailor-made to cover the golden mark of shame that Teal’c wore on his forehead, symbol of his former stature as Prime of Apophis. The white set off his darker features well, if the appreciative glances of the female soldiers on the base were any indication.

O’Neill dismissed his co-pilot, a lucky kid needing a lift back to the Mid-East base along with three of his buddies also home on leave. He’d have Carter sign on as co-pilot for the trip home to return the jet. Speed was of the essence; Carter had picked up several Goa’uld artifacts that needed secluding in the secure fastnesses of Cheyenne Mountain, and O’Neill had already arranged for a team to scour the Chicago home of Daniel’s former mentor. But the sooner they could get the Egyptian situation under control and out from under Egyptian noses the better. O’Neill liked having things where he could keep his fingers on them, and having half of his team flat on their backs in the Middle East didn’t qualify.

Teal’c waited until the soldiers had formally taken their leave of O’Neill, the co-pilot well aware of the good fortune he’d had to be allowed to sit in the seat next to the former Black Ops officer. Teal’c himself would have preferred to claim the honor of the co-pilot’s chair, but this was international air space, and difficult questions would require excessively creative answers were they to be apprehended. 

Teal’c surveyed the landing area: heat rose in waves off of the tarmac, air traffic controllers waving the next jet into position, jet jockeys positioning O’Neill’s jet for a fast re-fueling in preparation for the return journey. The hangar looked inviting, suggesting cooler air-conditioned air within and a welcome respite from the bright sunlight outside; thirty seconds of warmth was enough to satisfy O’Neill’s need for beach weather. Farther back sat the rest of the base with its multitude of buildings flanked by base housing.

"Where are MajorCarter, DanielJackson, and DoctorFrasier?"

O’Neill took his hat off, slicked back graying hair, and replaced it firmly. Not that he liked the thing, but appearances were important here. Not to wear the hat would have invited speculation. He pointed to the hangar. "Carter said they’d have Daniel back there, waiting, along with the box of toys they confiscated before the Egyptian authorities moved in. Said she thinks they got all the good ones, and the Egyptians should be plenty pleased with the ones that really did originate on Earth. Hah—there they are."

Teal’c squinted at the figures walking through the waves of heat. Both Carter and Frasier had donned military garb, the better to command respect and give orders with. The Jaffa was reminded of the Tau’re saying that he had come across: clothes do make the man, or, in this case, the woman. Teal’c frowned: both women walked stiffly, clearly a remnant from their recent adventure with the cursed Goa’uld. They had drafted a young recruit to tote a large box filled, Teal’c had no doubt, with the highly dangerous artifacts that they had recovered from that same Goa’uld.

And both women had hold of an arm of a certain archeologist who had started this whole mess, a man who was staggering under his own power but just barely.

_Be fair, O’Neill. Daniel didn’t start this one. He only discovered it._

Same difference. Trouble magnet.

O’Neill rescued Frasier from her side of Dr. Jackson, figuring that, as the smaller one, if Jackson did go down she’d be more likely to get crunched. Besides, they’d need her to patch up the damage. "You folks look like you’ve had a wonderful time."

"I’m ready to go home," Dr. Frasier informed him tartly. "You know, the place with the cool air, with lots of nurses where I don’t have to worry about Dr. Jackson opening his mouth in his sleep and saying something he shouldn’t."

"I didn’t," Jackson grumbled, staggering. 

O’Neill shored him up. "C’mon, Daniel. One foot in front of the other, just like before."

"I’m fine, Jack. And I didn’t say anything."

"I will relieve you of your burden," Teal’c informed the wide-eyed recruit, taking the box from him. He glanced from Frasier to Carter, clearly intercepting their need for secrecy and wanting to do something about it. "You are dismissed."

The kid looked uncertainly at Major Carter. Teal’c wasn’t in uniform, and looked more like a visiting local dignitary than someone who ought to be toting carry-on luggage for officers. But Carter gave him a stiff nod of approval, and the kid let go. He saluted uncertainly. O’Neill returned the gesture, his hand barely making it up to shoulder height. Carter’s salute was a bit crisper, and the kid headed back for the cool hangar.

O’Neill eyed Carter uncertainly. His second in command had recently showered, and that had removed a great deal of the damage done on this mission, but lines still framed her eyes and those lines weren’t just from jet lag. "You up to flying back, Carter? I can request another co-pilot to join us."

"Thank you, sir, but I can manage. I can use all the air-time hours I can get, too. But I’ll let you handle the take-off and landing, if you don’t mind."

"Deal. You can fill me in on the details once we’re air-born."

* * *

Teal’c took a seat where he could observe the scenery outside the window and still watch both Dr. Frasier and DanielJackson. That was his function: to guard. To watch. To fight and to protect. He had noticed that although many of the Tau’re did not do this watching, those who were trained as fighters did. They all vied for the optimal place from which to scrutinize everything around them. O’Neill did this automatically.

Teal’c also did not speak, and the other two did not share details of their mission. This did not bother Teal’c. If there was a need for him to know, they would tell him. Likewise, did he disagree with their silence, he could request and receive the written reports that DanielJackson and Dr.Frasier would surely be required to generate. GeneralHammond had never denied him that request, seeing the wisdom in it.

There was wisdom in their silence now as well. Both were recovering from their ordeal. Dr. Frasier removed her cap, and her hair now escaped its confining pins. Her shoes stood empty beside her feet, and she occasionally wiggled her toes, enjoying the freedom from their imprisonment. She had not been able to take MajorCarter’s example of bathing, having been involved with the care of both DanielJackson and his archeological colleague for many hours. DanielJackson’s friend remained in the base infirmary under Air Force medical supervision, and, O’Neill had told him, would be returned to either the dig site or his position at the Chicago educational facility after being properly debriefed and given an appropriate cover story. Teal’c did not quite envy DanielJackson’s colleague for the Tau’re ability to believe what they wanted to believe. Most Tau’re chose not to believe in the possibility of other races on other planets, and so they refused to believe the evidence their own eyes presented them. No matter; it would serve SGC well.

DanielJackson reclined in his own chair, the seat belt loosely across his waist. There wasn’t a mark on him, but Teal’c still could see the results of the hand device that Osiris had used upon his friend: pain etched lines into his fair face, closing his eyes and wrinkling his forehead. Dr.Fraiser had insisted that he take medication, and it appeared to be effective. DanielJackson slept.

Teal’c returned his attention to scenery below the jet. ColonelO’Neill and MajorCarter had kept the flying as smooth and gentle as any Jaffa mother with her newborn, and they had recently left the ocean behind and were now flying over the broad plains of what they referred to as ‘the Mid-West’. Green pastures were arranged in large squares with conglomerations of houses and larger buildings in neat rows along barely visible roadways. A river here, a lake there; Teal’c lost count. There had been a small amount of jostling as the jet flew over the Appalachian Mountains, but that too had been minimal. ColonelO’Neill was an excellent pilot.

Dr. Frasier stretched, too long in one position, and glanced over at her patient. DanielJackson still slept. Teal’c had no clue what prompted her actions, but Frasier unbuckled herself to check on him.

She shook his shoulder. "Daniel? Are you all right?"

"Head hurts," he mumbled. Teal’c was surprised; he would have sworn that his teammate was asleep. Dr.Frasier’s skills as a healer were unparalleled. 

Then Jackson opened bright blue eyes to look Janet Frasier guilelessly in the face. "Wear the green dress tomorrow tonight. It looks good on you. He’ll like it." His face suddenly paled, and his eyes rolled up in his head.

"Daniel?" Frasier shook his shoulder again. "Daniel? Teal’c, give me a hand. He’s passed out." Swiftly, they tilted the jet seat back as far as it would go, raising the legs into a supine position. Frasier rummaged in her medical kit, pulling out an ampoule that she passed under the stricken man’s nose.

It worked instantly. Jackson coughed, and tried to turn away. Frasier grimly held it in place until she was certain that he wasn’t drifting off again.

"Dr. Frasier?" Teal’c was concerned. "What has happened?"

"That’s all the pain-killers for you, Daniel Jackson," Frasier announced. "Certainly for now. You’re having an adverse reaction."

"Great." Jackson shivered. Frasier pulled out a blanket from supplies and draped it around his shoulders. "What happened?"

"Pain-killers like that can cause your blood pressure to bottom out. Which yours apparently did. You’re a little shocky right now. You’ll be fine in a few minutes." Frasier paused. "What did you mean, wear the green dress? How did you know that I have a date for tomorrow tonight?"

Jackson shrugged, huddling into the blanket. "I don’t know. It just popped into my head. You couldn’t decide."

It wasn’t much of an answer. Frasier handed him a mug of hot tea, making sure that his shaking hands wouldn’t spill it. "I must have mentioned it earlier. You rest, Daniel. When we get back to the SGC, I’ll be checking you out thoroughly."

"I thought you already did that," he groaned.

"I’m worried about neurogenic shock, Daniel, and any possible late effects of what you went through. We don’t know what that hand device that Osiris used is capable of." She turned to Teal’c. "Teal’c, go tell Colonel O’Neill that I don’t want any sight-seeing on this flight. Let’s put this bird down as soon as possible."

* * *

"Janet, please." This wasn’t the wheedling Daniel Jackson, trying to get away with something. This was a man who had faced more than his share of pain. "I’ve just lost the man who taught me archeology. I lost Sarah to the Goa’uld Osiris, and couldn’t do a damn thing about it. I need some space, Janet." He tried again. "All your tests came back negative. I promise, I’ll come back in the morning and let you stick more needles into me."

"Let him go, doc." O’Neill came to his rescue. Jackson flashed him a grateful, though surprised, smile. But O’Neill recognized the signs, of the need to be in a familiar and comforting place to put the horrors of the world in perspective. "I’ll make sure he gets home safely. That do for the night?"

Frasier sighed. "It’s against my better judgment, but go. Before I change my mind."

"Thanks, Jack," Jackson said, as the two walked out of SGC. "I really didn’t want to stay in the infirmary tonight. I wouldn’t have been able to sleep. Even my office would’ve been better."

"That pigpen? Your chair is covered with papers." O’Neill guided him smoothly through the base and out to the parking lot to O’Neill’s own car. "There’s no place to sit, let alone get a good night’s sleep. Frasier would have my ass in a sling if I let you hide in there." He opened the car door, blocking Jackson from escaping the colonel’s watch. "Get in."

"My car—"

"Will still be here in the morning. This is a military installation, Daniel. Not too many things get stolen."

"But—"

"I promised Frasier that I’d see you home safely, and I never break my word to a lady." He paused, wincing. "Not often, at least."

They made the drive in silence, Jackson closing his eyes and sighing, letting O’Neill take the turns and straightaways back to town. He’d seen this scenery many times before, loved the trees on the sides of the roads, loved the green smell of autumn creeping into September. But he was tired. Friends were gone, never to be seen again, not in this life. Even Sarah, now Osiris, would certainly try to kill him should they ever meet.

O’Neill kept the ride buttery smooth, taking the curves slowly so as not to jostle his team mate. This too had happened before: one or the other bumped up against something bigger than anyone ought to handle, and ended up being driven home by the other to retreat from reality until time began the healing process, the sense of quiet support the main requirement from the other. 

He tapped the radio on, turning the volume to just above a whisper. While Jackson and Carter were in Egypt, he’d been following the local news. A story had riveted his attention: a young boy had gone missing. The media’s take was a sordid kidnapping, trying to hunt up suspects, demanding answers from supposedly incompetent police, interviewing tearful parents who wanted nothing more than to have their son back. Pictures of the boy had popped up all over the area, begging for information and promising all they had if the kidnappers would only return their son. But the supposed kidnappers had kept silent. It sounded to O’Neill as if there was another explanation, even if the spectacle-hungry media didn’t want to acknowledge it. Kids would occasionally run away, or get stuck somewhere in the woods. And there was a lot of undeveloped land around the Cheyenne Mountain Base.

It had nothing to do with O’Neill, but one look at the boy’s face on the tube had gripped him. Not identical, no, but close enough to clutch at his heart. The kid looked enough like his own dead Charlie that O’Neill couldn’t help but grit his teeth every time another news bulletin went out. And he couldn’t seem to put it away. Sheer perversity drove him to follow the story, hoping against hope that the kid would show up, safe and sound. _Don’t let another parent go through what I did .No one ought to lose a child, for any reason._

Jackson swallowed hard. O’Neill glanced over at him, turning back quickly to the road to negotiate the turn. He’d thought that the man had dozed off with more of Frasier’s drugs inside him. "Daniel?"

"Stop the car." In a gurgling tone.

O’Neill pulled off onto the dirt shoulder. Jackson lurched out, falling to his knees just in time to prevent erupting in O’Neill’s pride and joy.

O’Neill swiftly turned off the engine, locking the brakes. He hustled around the front and dropped beside the archeologist. "Daniel?" In a more worried tone. He took Jackson’s shoulders.

Jackson cried out, hands grabbing at his head.

Fear clutched at O’Neill’s gut. "That’s it, Daniel. We’re heading back to Doc Frasier."

"No!" Jackson clung to O’Neill, trembling. "No! He’s there. Down there!"

"Who, Daniel?" O’Neill was confused.

"Charlie! Charlie Turner! Oh, God, Jack, he’s hurting! We have to save him!"

"Daniel!" O’Neill steadied him. "Daniel, you just heard something on the radio. There’s a kid missing, but his name is Jake. Not Charlie. You were dreaming."

"Jack. Listen to me." Jackson tried to calm down, tried to convince O’Neill that this was for real. "There is a child down there, down that slope. There is a mine shaft. That kid, Charlie or Jake or whatever his name is, he’s there. He fell in."

"This is out in the middle of nowhere, Daniel." Jackson’s story didn’t seem likely. How could Jackson know where a missing child was? Jackson hadn’t heard the story until just now, and that was assuming that he was listening to the car radio instead of dozing.

"He’s there, Jack." Jackson tried to push the pain out through the back of his head. "Jack, please. Humor me. Just… humor me." He grabbed at a slender tree trunk for support, determined to stagger down the slope himself.

With an exclamation of disgust, O’Neill plunged after him, grabbing an arm to steady the man and helping him down the slope through the trees. Jackson made a beeline for a particularly dense grouping of trees, their leaves turning golden and copper under the onslaught of autumn. Jackson’s steps didn’t turn aside once.

There was a mine shaft beyond the copse of trees, dark and foreboding and utterly unexpected. O’Neill hadn’t known it was there, and he doubted that Jackson had gone hiking in this neck of the woods. Jackson clutched onto a sapling, trying to keep from falling over onto his face. O’Neill cast a suspicious glance at Jackson, and called in: "Hello?"

A tiny, exhausted voice took its time floating out. "I’m stuck." A sob followed close on its heels.

O’Neill swore. Jackson had been right. There was no rational explanation for it, but somehow Jackson had figured out that the kid on the radio had fallen down this mine shaft. He pushed Jackson down to the ground to keep him from falling, not that it took much effort. "Stay there," he instructed harshly. "I’m going back to car to get some rope and call for help."

"Um." Jackson leaned back against the tree, and closed his eyes.

* * *

"Wonderful," Jackson groaned. "Another story for the ‘crazy Daniel Jackson’ file." He held up the newspaper that O’Neill had thoughtfully brought into the infirmary the next morning for Jackson—and everyone else—to read. The headline, in big and black and unmistakable lettering, read: Local Psychic Finds Boy. And in smaller print: Police Baffled.

General Hammond was not best pleased. "Be grateful that Dr. Frasier insisted you remain on base last night after Colonel O’Neill brought you back, Dr. Jackson. My people tell me that the tabloids have been staking out your place, hoping to talk to you. They didn’t clear out until four AM, and were back hustling at six." He harrumphed, and glared at O’Neill. "Colonel, couldn’t you have found a more conventional way to tell people that that boy was stuck in a mine shaft? We’re trying to keep a low profile out here."

O’Neill winced. "Sorry, sir. I tried the ‘we’re hiking at eight o’clock at night’ story but it didn’t stick. People started getting the wrong idea."

"So what in tarnation did happen? Surely you’re not going to tell me that Dr. Jackson has suddenly turned into a mind reader? Dr. Frasier?"

Frasier studied the papers in her hands. "If he has, sir, it’s not showing up on any test results. MRI: negative. CT scan: negative. All the blood work came back normal." She smiled weakly. "And, yes, sir, we did do some preliminary testing for extra-sensory perception last night after we got Dr. Jackson stabilized. We had Dr. Jackson try to pick up pictures from Colonel O’Neill, the standard ESP deck, since the colonel would have been the likely catalyst for the Turner boy’s situation to come to Dr. Jackson’s mind. Then we tried Major Carter, Teal’c, and myself. Even a few of the nurses. All negative." She struggled to come up with a theory. "We don’t have to resort to the supernatural to explain this, General. Best guess, sir, is that Dr. Jackson somehow put all the pieces together in his subconscious at the right time. He’d probably walked through the forest and had seen the mine shaft, possibly even months ago. He heard about the boy on the radio, as Colonel O’Neill reported. His mind was relaxed, courtesy of some opioids that I’d administered not two hours previously. Dr. Jackson is a brilliant man, with a penchant for being able to put two and two together and come up with five. Young Jake Turner was lucky that Dr. Jackson was right. He could have just as easily been wrong."

General Hammond looked Jackson over thoroughly, trying to figure out what was going on with vision alone.

Jackson hunched his shoulders, going for inconspicuous, a difficult task while the center of attention perched on an infirmary stretcher in the middle of the room. "Dr. Frasier is right; I just happened to put the pieces together, and was lucky," he offered tentatively. "The odds were against it, but lucky for Jake I guessed right. Sheer coincidence, general. Nothing more."

"Humph." Hammond unfolded his arms. "I suspect you’re right, Dr. Jackson." He glanced at his watch and then mock-glared at everyone he could see. "What’re you all waiting for? Haven’t you got work to get back to?"

"Yes, sir!" Jackson hopped down from the table, snatching up his shirt. Then he hesitated. "Uh, General, I _can_ go home tonight? Janet?"

"If you want to put up with the reporters at your door," Hammond told him. He looked at his watch again. "Dr. Frasier may have cleared you, but they haven’t."

"Great." Jackson fumbled with the shirt buttons.

O’Neill changed the subject. He could see that Jackson really wanted the spotlight to be on someone else for a bit. "Haven’t heard recently from SG-3. They okay, General?"

It was the third time that Hammond had looked at his watch in as many minutes. "Overdue, colonel. Overdue."

O’Neill’s posture stiffened by just a hair. "I can put SG-1 on alert, General." A sideways glance at Jackson. "Three-quarters of us, anyway. We can be ready to go in fifteen. Carter’s down in her lab, and Teal’c’s working out."

Hammond frowned. "Do that. It’s not like SG-3 to miss their communication. They were meeting with a few of the Tok’ra. I don’t mind telling you that I’m a mite concerned."

"Go now!" 

"Dr. Jackson?"

"Go now!" Jackson’s voice had a strangled sound to it, and his eyes were staring sightlessly into space. His hands clutched the sides of the infirmary stretcher, white-knuckled, the buttons to his shirt forgotten. "SG-3 is under heavy fire, not one hundred yards from the Stargate. They need covering fire in order to make it the rest of the way. There’s a legion of Jaffa shooting at them, and a Death Fighter making a bombing run. The Tok’ra are with them, but there is a traitor. It’s that Tok’ra traitor that arranged for the Jaffa to intercept the meeting. Hurry!" His face went pale. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he slumped. O’Neill barely caught him before he slid off of the stretcher. "Hurry!" Jackson whispered desperately. "Hurry…"

"On the stretcher, now," Frasier snapped. "Karen, an EKG. Emily, start an IV. Somebody get me some vitals."

Jackson’s blue eyes wouldn’t focus. "Jack… hurry. SG-3…" The curtains were pushed between them, cutting O’Neill off from his archeologist. There was a lot of activity behind, phrases called out: "seventy over forty," "sinus brady," and "only getting forty palpable." Then: "pressure back up. Ninety over sixty, and rising." The relief was almost tangible, even from beyond the curtain.

O’Neill looked up at Hammond. "Sir?" Jackson was going to be all right, again. O’Neill couldn’t do anything here, but he could out there. Where SG-3 was. If Jackson had beaten coincidence again, they had to take advantage of it and O’Neill needed an excuse for action.

Hammond growled. This was against all sense. "Go."

* * *

"Incoming! SG-1’s signal."

"Stand ready, people. We don’t know what’s following them home." General Hammond took his position behind the glass, wishing that command would let him be down there in the Embarkation Room brandishing a weapon with the rest of his people.

The first pair staggered through the StarGate: Carter, with an older man in a fireman’s carry across her shoulders, sheer adrenaline the only thing powering her forward progress. She aimed for the side of the sloping ramp just in time; an energy bolt whisked past her to splatter harmlessly against the glass barrier. Hammond flinched.

"Medics!" she yelled. "We’ve got more casualties coming!"

Hammond relayed the message. "On their way, Major. How many?"

"Lost count, General." She tenderly deposited her burden on the floor, where two medics helped her drag him behind the line of armed men, ready for the defense of the Stargate room. "Dad?"

"I’ll be all right, sweetheart." Jacob Carter strove to keep himself under control. "Selmac’ll be able to fix everything. Just give him time." _But would there be enough time?_ was the question they left unanswered. "Where are the others?"

Timing was everything. Two more men in camo’s staggered through, only to collapse to their knees. Carter helped pull them off the ramp and into the arms of the waiting medics, both smoking from energy blasts. More followed, some whole but most not. Teal’c was almost last with another SG-3 man in his arms. O’Neill arrived backwards, P-90 hot, finishing the round-up.

"Close the iris! Close the iris!" he yelled.

Not fast enough. Two jackal-armored Jaffa stomped through the shimmering blue. O’Neill’s P-90 dropped one of them. It took the defending forces longer to finish the last; they had to wait for O’Neill to hit the ground and get out of the way.

"I need these people in the infirmary!" Frasier yelled. "Let’s move, people!" She knelt to look at Jacob Carter, curled in his daughter’s arms. "Jacob?"

"Not so good right now, Janet." Jacob tried to speak lightly.

"Selmac?"

"A little busy," Jacob assured her. "In fact, a whole lot busy." He tried to sit up, and failed.

Frasier pushed him down. "Get me a stretcher over here, someone. We’ll have you feeling better soon, Jacob. If not Selmac, then me."

Hammond hustled down to the Embarkation Room as soon as the iris closed. He grabbed Colonel O’Neill. "Colonel?"

O’Neill looked bleak. "We lost Nesmith, and two of the Tok’ra, and were lucky at that. It was a slaughterhouse, general. Nobody would have made it out alive if we hadn’t come through. The Goa’uld set up a trap for the Tok’ra, and SG-3 waltzed in behind for brownie points." He turned away, then turned back, his lips in a tight line. "If Daniel hadn’t figured it out when he did, Carter would be an orphan by now."

* * *

"I need more stretchers." Frasier’s overloud voice held a warning, clear instructions to her team. The infirmary was busier than it had ever been, with people bumping into each other trying to get to the wounded. "Treat and street, people. We’ll clean up later. Triage is the key." She took a second look at one of her patients. "Dammit, he’s crashing! Get the paddles!" She dove in on one of the SG-3 men, dragging personnel with her.

One of the medics tapped Jackson on the shoulder. The archeologist had retreated to a stretcher as far out of the way as possible, but even that wasn’t good enough. The medic smiled reassuringly at him. "That means you’re out of here, Dr. Jackson. Don’t go far; Dr. Frasier’ll want to follow up when she can. But you’re one of the walking wounded, so walk. We need your bed."

"Good." Jackson didn’t exactly jump off the infirmary stretcher, but he did hustle. His head was pounding; it felt like every person being wheeled into the infirmary was sharing his or her pain with one single Daniel Jackson. Every part of him throbbed sympathetically in time with his head. He staggered outside the infirmary, leaned against the wall to catch his breath. More people ran past him, back and forth, ignoring him. He could stand, therefore he was better off than ninety percent of everyone else inside the infirmary.

Distance helped. Not enough, but some. His headache diminished from a nuclear inferno to a mere C4 explosion.

Away. He had to get away. The further away he was, the more the pain would recede. The pain was blinding, but a hand against the occasional wall kept him on track, and that track was away from the infirmary and its deluge of misery.

Good hypothesis: distance would diminish his headache. Testing the hypothesis came next.

On the basis of a single experiment, theory apparently correct. Jackson collapsed into the chair in his office two levels away, not caring that his chair still contained undoubtedly important papers that he would want someday soon. He left the lights off; that too was better than bright reading lamps. He longed for coffee but the portable unit that he kept in the corner held only bitter dregs, and the energy to start a fresh pot was beyond him. Not to mention the smell of anything tempted his insides to rebel. How far away was the men’s room? Jackson couldn’t remember, and didn’t want to test his endurance. Coffee could wait.

He must have dozed off. Nightmares attacked him. Horrible dreams raced through his mind’s eye: cries from the wounded, shrieks from the marauding Jaffa. He imagined how the First Prime aimed his staff weapon at one of the Tok’ra, blasting away so that the woman was literally cut into two smoking halves. He saw Nesmith aim his P-90 and spray bullets across the line of Jaffa, and they fell like mown grass that the next wave of Jaffa trampled over. It was literally one hundred Jaffa for every one Tok’ra and Earthman. Pain cut across his ribs, and his dream self looked down to see a smoking sear of burned flesh across his ribs. Even the bones were burned black with ash: Nesmith died before he hit the ground.

Too vivid! Too vivid! Even when Jackson opened his eyes, the nightmares continued, only shifted to the infirmary. There was Carter, frantic with worry over her father Jacob. It didn’t matter that he was blended with Selmac, that the Tok’ra was doing every thing in his power to heal the duo. O’Neill he felt as a white hot rage, anger at the deception, anger at the loss of good men. Even Teal’c smoldered in some corner, waiting to be told how the Tau’re would extract revenge for this outrage.

Too much—he had to get away. Hands automatically fumbled with car keys—when had he walked out the front gate? Internal auto-pilot took over, guiding the car through the parking lot and onto the road leading away from the base and to town, to his apartment.

Half way to home Jackson suddenly came to himself. What was he doing? Janet Frasier, as soon as she realized that he was no longer on the base, would be frantic. Which would lead to hysteria on the part of his teammates. He took a deep breath, willing his hands to stop shaking.

It was then that he realized that he felt better. No headache, no nightmares. Blessed peace inside his skull. Jackson never realized just how much he valued his solitude until he hadn’t had it.

The thought of returning to the madhouse that the SGC had become was abhorrent; he couldn’t face it. Out here, alone, in his car, Jackson was able to think, to keep his distance from everyone, to stay away from their pain and misery.

His own picture started to become clear. Both he and Frasier and everyone else had scoffed at the thought of extra-sensory perception, but now, out here and far from everyone’s minds, he wasn’t so sure. Frasier’s dress: he had heard her talking about it while unconscious in Egypt. Hearing was the last sense to go, and he had overheard her only for it to re-surface at a coincidental time. That thing with the lost child, Jake what-ever-his-name was: another coincidence.

But three strikes, and Jackson was out. The chances of seeing the entire battle from several different viewpoints, the possibility of feeling Nesmith die as a staff weapon sliced through his ribs, was too remote for coincidence. And feeling the emotions of his closest teammates afterward? He could imagine what they must be feeling, but what he imagined went beyond imagination. This wasn’t imagination; he _knew_.

What to do? Returning to the SGC was out of the question. He couldn’t face them all, not be inundated with all the fear and pain and horror living there right now. Jackson needed help, he knew that, but it would have to come to him.

Neither could he remain in his car out here on the road. A despairing smile flitted across his lips. Really uncomfortable for the long term, not to mention little to no closet space. As peaceful as it was, as _alone_ as it was, this was not a long term or even mildly short term solution.

His apartment, then. Alone, without others, there he would call Jack and let him know that he was all right. Jackson re-started his car, more in control of himself and his life. This would work. O’Neill would understand. Jack O’Neill would figure out how to make it all right.

He felt the thoughts of the town of Cheyenne, people bustling about, idle thoughts here and there. These he could handle: an elderly retiree wondering where his ATM card had disappeared to, a housewife trying to remember the things she had gone to the grocery store for, the joy of an infant waking from a nap and seeing his mother come to lift him out of his crib. These were good things, things that Jackson didn’t particularly want inside his own head but that he could live with. They weren’t _loud_. And they certainly didn’t hurt.

However, the thoughts did get noisier and more crowded the closer he got to civilization. Still, it was background buzz, white noise; unpleasant but not as bad as SGC. He drove on, the trees slowly giving way to sidewalk-lined streets and tall apartment buildings in between quaint stores.

Jackson felt the bored thoughts of the tabloid reporters before he drove into the parking lot in front of his apartment building: bored, with coffee being guzzled from almost every mind. Bad coffee, too, but it felt like heaven to Jackson after more than twenty-four hours without his caffeine fix. He could handle it now, too, without his stomach going into full scale rebellion at the thought of something moving past his gullet. There was coffee in his kitchen, and right now it was calling to him in the more usual sense.

He parked down the street, not in the parking lot where the tabloid reporters would spot him. Somehow, being chased by not only physical reporters but their inquiring minds didn’t thrill him.

Which was when Jackson realized that he had gone from disbelief to acceptance. Crazy Daniel Jackson had one more crazy attribute to add to his resume: telepathy. Real, honest-to-Murgatroyd mind-reading, tarot cards optional.

_Great_.

There was no one at the side entrance to his apartment building. Either they didn’t know about it or, after more than twenty-four hours, they didn’t think he was going to come home. It didn’t matter; Jackson appreciated the oversight. He trotted up the staircase, not trusting the elevator in the front lobby, and made his way into his apartment, carefully closing and locking the door behind him. Locking out the world.

He didn’t bother to turn the lights on. There was enough ambient light coming in from outside, and the evening darkness suited him right now with its suggestion of anonymity. There were twenty messages on his machine, most, he figured from reporter types. His phone number was unlisted but didn’t seem to stop the tabloids. People who knew him well enough to call knew to get hold of him at the SGC. And the SGC had known that he was in Egypt up until a couple of days ago. He grimaced. The answering machine could wait. Coffee couldn’t. He turned the little machine on, picking up the carafe to fill it with water and coffee grounds.

Angry, unhappy thoughts crept in with ferocious swiftness. Jackson almost dropped the carafe with their intensity. He whirled around.

A dark figure stood in the doorway. "You’re a hard man to get hold of, Dr. Jackson."

It didn’t even take a mind reader to tell what this man wanted. "If you know that, then you know that kidnapping me will bring down a lot more trouble than you want. Better leave now, before I turn the lights on. Wouldn’t want to be able to identify you clearly."

The man chuckled. It sounded evil in the semi-darkness. "That will not be a problem, Dr. Jackson. Thank you, though, for being so thoughtful. Would you be equally as considerate as to put this blindfold on?" He tossed the black cloth at Jackson.

Jackson really didn’t like the thoughts that were emanating from this man’s mind, plans that included a black car down the street not far from where he’d parked his own, ropes and gags, drugs in syringes. But above them all was a young woman: blonde, blue eyes to rival his own, innocent smile—and missing.

"It’s not necessary," he replied. "All you had to do was to ask about Isabel."

The man betrayed nothing in his stance, but his thoughts couldn’t help but give him away. "So…" he hissed. "It is true."

"Unfortunately. Can we skip the cloak and dagger routine?"

The man considered, then shook his head regretfully. "No. This is for your own protection, Dr. Jackson. The person—people that I work for will be less understanding. You may be able to identify them from their thoughts alone, but I doubt such an identification will stand up in court. Eye witness account is so much more socially acceptable. And, think of it from your own perspective: the fewer people you can identify once this is over, the better your chances for emerging from this alive."

* * *

General Hammond looked at Colonel O’Neill, trying not to appear nervous. Both were stationed just outside the infirmary door. "Is it safe?"

"I don’t know. You look in. You’re the general."

"Which means that I get to delegate unpleasant tasks to subordinates, _colonel_."

O’Neill sighed. "She probably won’t rip my ears off. It’d just mean more work for her, stitching ‘em back on." He brightened at the third member of their group. "Carter! She likes you. You’re another woman."

"Thanks for noticing, sir." Carter, sarcastic? She must be unhappy. She looked at Teal’c.

"Do not considering asking, Major. I too possess a strong sense of self-preservation. Dr. Frasier is a woman before whom even the Goa’uld system lords should tremble in fear."

"Besides, Carter," O’Neill added, "you have an excuse. Your father is one of ‘em."

But before Carter could summon the courage to beard the lion in her den, Frasier opened the infirmary door. 

"Don’t think I didn’t notice the bunch of you standing here," she said with a smile, as if she treated two dozen badly injured humans and Tok’ra on a daily basis. "You can come in now. It’s safe."

"My father?" Carter couldn’t wait.

"He’s going to be fine, Sam. He needs to see you, though." Frasier frowned. "Selmac says he needs to see all of you." She led them inside.

Jacob Carter lay on an infirmary stretcher—the same one that Jackson had vacated, as it were—looking whiter than the sheet but his smile was welcoming. He held out his one good arm to his daughter. "Sam. I can’t tell you how good it was to see you come through the Stargate. And even better to see you right now." He hugged her, a more exuberant gesture than any he’d given her while she was growing up, and held onto her hand after the hug was over. "You, too, Jack. Teal’c. George, thanks for the rescue." His face hardened. "We were set up. This was no accident."

Hammond settled himself onto a convenient stool. "Go on."

"We met up with your people, the SG-3 team. They brought us the C4 that we needed to destroy the Goa’uld installation on—never mind where. It’s unimportant right now. What’s important is that the Jaffa were waiting for us. All of us." Jacob’s face tightened. He looked down for a moment, and when he looked back up, it was Selmac who spoke.

"General Hammond, I echo my host’s gratitude for your actions, yours and that of SG-1’s. Without them, we would not be here today. But we are facing a grave problem. This action by the Jaffa demonstrates what I have feared for some time now: that the Goa’uld have planted a traitor among us. One of the Tok’ra here in this room is a spy."

"Daniel was right," O’Neill muttered.

Selmac caught it. "Dr. Jackson? What does he have to do with this? Where is he?"

"Dr. Jackson," and Hammond looked uncomfortable, "has been experiencing something that we can only describe as telepathy. It started shortly after he was assaulted by Osiris with a hand device. His episodes are erratic and unpredictable, but devastatingly accurate, as you can attest to. He saw your situation, and persuaded us to mount a rescue."

Selmac looked thoughtful. "This is not unheard of. Nirti, one of the system lords, was experimenting at one time with certain of your people, trying to obtain a consistent strain of mental powers. I had heard that her efforts were not successful, that the abilities would fade after a short period of time. Or that the subject succumbed to the injuries inflicted by the hand device. She moved to a different approach."

"I did not know this," Teal’c admitted.

"There is no reason why you should have, Teal’c. Apophis wasn’t interested, and Nirti had poor results with Jaffa. After a trial or two she kept strictly to the Tau’re."

"Lucky us," O’Neill commented.

"We need him right now," Selmac continued, "if his abilities haven’t yet faded. There is no way for us to determine who the traitor among us is. And he—or she—is dangerous not only to the Tok’ra but, now that the traitor is on Earth, a danger also to you in SGC. Think of how much damage one skilled perpetrator could do."

That thought crossed Hammond’s mind with unpleasant clarity. "I’ll have a guard put on the Stargate immediately."

"The power supply, too, George, and the computers." Jacob was back, putting in his military two cents. "I can’t think of anything else to damage around here that will cause as much devastation. Although you may want to consider doubling the entrance guards. Back to the immediate: where’s Daniel? Can someone track him down for us? The sooner we have him identify our traitor, the better. Then we won’t have to worry about doubling the guards."

* * *

_At least they let me ride in the back seat instead of the trunk_. Jackson sat between two large men, blind-folded, hands tied behind him and feet loosely hobbled. He could feel their thoughts with disturbing clarity: bored, but with a hint of anticipation to come. They weren’t expecting any trouble; why should they? Their victim was essentially immobilized. Jackson could shout, but no one could hear him from inside the car. And the diminishing quality of the other minds around him led him to believe that whatever his destination was, it would not be somewhere he could look for the cop on the corner.

Then _all_ of the thoughts drained away, leaving him empty inside. Even the stolid minds of the two men surrounding him were gone. Jackson sighed in relief, and closed his eyes behind the blindfold.

Blessed solitude. Jackson would never complain about being alone again.

* * *

"He was here." O’Neill turned the coffee-maker off. The odor of burned coffee receded. "Another hour, and this thing would’ve started a fire."

"Did he go back out? His car’s not in the lot." Carter continued to poke through things. There was little evidence, aside from the coffee-maker, that anyone had ever been here. Teal’c too nosed around, looking for signs of life. "If what my father says is right, Daniel might not be in his right mind. I know from my own experience with Johlinar that having two minds with a single brain can be pretty disconcerting. The idea of having an infinite number of people all thinking at the same time…" she trailed off.

"Perhaps one of the reporters congregating below offered him coffee," Teal’c suggested, "in exchange for information about the rescue of the boy."

"He was taken," O’Neill said flatly.

Teal’c stiffened. "What leads you to that conclusion, O’Neill?"

"Scratches on the outside lock." O’Neill pointed to the balcony doors. "Daniel’s tabloid fans might have tried to jimmy their way inside from the front entrance—and, in fact, they did try—but this character waited until dark, climbed the fire escape, and went through this door like a hot knife through butter." He unclenched his teeth. "I told Daniel to get a better lock out here. Not that it would have made any difference. This guy was a pro." He pulled out his cell phone. He doubted that Jackson’s assailant had left prints, but miracles were not unheard of. "I’ll let General Hammond know. We have two scenarios, both equally bad. One: a foreign power has decided that they want their own Stargate specialist. Two, and more likely: some crazy nut cult has decided that Daniel, as per the tabloid reports, is their Link to the Great Beyond, the Aliens from Another World, or any combination of the two. Either way means no Daniel, which means Jacob and the other Tok’ra are up a creek without a paddle. Not to mention a certain SG team I happen to be very attached to."

Teal’c fixed him with an upraised eyebrow. "Colonel O’Neill, _I_ am an Alien from Another World. We are already Linked." He put the same capitals as did O’Neill. "And it is not clear to me which creek you would like JacobCarter to paddle up."

"Like I said, big guy: we are in a heap of trouble."

* * *

"We could pound him a little for you," one of his captors suggested. "That might make him open up."

_No, it wouldn’t_ , Jackson thought wearily, keeping it to himself. _The brain cells have gone back to normal._

He was lying half-capsized on a musty sofa, wrists still tied behind his back and ankles still hobbled together. He wasn’t going anywhere, not until his captors decided to let him go, and that didn’t sound like any time soon. The blindfold was still in place as well, preventing him from seeing the leader of the group who had come in an hour ago.

The leader sounded like a man in his fifties, someone important in his field and used to getting his own way. Jackson didn’t recognize the voice but the attitude was the same as the big mahoffs in his field, the ones who refused to listen to new ideas because they threatened the old ones. This man too had decided that Jackson would be able to locate his daughter just because something similar had happened once.

"No," the man responded. Jackson almost relaxed, as much as he could given his current circumstances. "I don’t believe that Dr. Jackson is being stubborn. I suspect he is being accurate about his inability to perform."

"Thanks," Jackson said wryly, trying to keep as much sarcasm out of his voice as he could.

"But I wish you would try a bit harder," the man continued. Eerie feeling, not knowing whether the speaker had blond hair or brown, tall or short. Jackson imagined him as dark-haired and stocky, though not over-weight. This man had too much self-control to let himself get out of shape. "The alternative may not be pleasant."

"I’d help if I could—" Jackson started to say, when the man grabbed his head, pulling him up painfully by his hair.

"Not pleasant at all!"

But Jackson didn’t hear him. Shooting across his mind’s eye was a young woman in her twenties, blonde hair streaked with darker strands caught back chastely behind her neck. She wore a pink uniform with a white apron stained with grease, and held a small pad of paper in her hand. As Jackson ‘watched’, she pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear so that none of her customers could tug on it, could pull her unwilling head down to steal an unwanted buss on the lips.

_She hoped that this bunch would be a bit better behaved than the last, not that they looked it. "What’ll it be, boys?"_

_They gave their orders, pinching her butt and making crude jokes at her expense. She ignored them as best she could, knowing that the owner/bouncer, Earl, wouldn’t intervene until it looked they’d do enough damage for her to have to go home for the_ _night and leave him to both tend bar and wait tables._

"She’s in a restaurant," Jackson said, his head swimming. He tried to tell himself that he really didn’t feel those fingers pinching his own backside, reaching for his/her bust. It was all in his mind. But it still made him feel as unclean as she did.

The man’s hand released him. "You really did see her."

"Yeah," Jackson muttered dizzily. "Isabel. She doesn’t want to be there _." But she doesn’t want to be with you, either. She made her choice: you lost. Get over it._

"He really did see her," the man said wonderingly. "He did."

Jackson swallowed hard, willing his insides to stay put. _There’s nothing in there to lose. Nothing ought to happen_. It didn’t work: He dry-heaved, feeling the sweat break out, feeling hot and cold at the same time, wishing he was safe in Frasier’s hated infirmary.

He felt the man grab his shoulders, shake him. Jackson fought not to lose consciousness.

"Where is she? You saw her; where is she? Tell me!"

"I don’t know." Jackson tried to shout, but he was pretty sure that the words came out in a mumble. He felt limp.

The man dropped him back on the musty sofa. Jackson could smell the dust that was sent spinning into the air. He sneezed.

But he could tell there were four people in the room. There were four minds, all thinking at him, about him, their thoughts louder than his own and three times as unpleasant. There was his original kidnapper, the polite one who made him wear the blindfold. And there were the two muscle-bound oafs, simple meat to do as they were told by number four, the man in charge. 

He saw the room through their eyes. There were three other pieces of furniture in the room, all covered with dust cloths. Kidnapper was sitting on one of them, ruining his suit. Oaf number one was staring at himself in a mirror with a crack through one corner: Jackson could the man as he saw himself in the mirror: shaved head, thick around the middle with muscle going to fat with plenty of beer behind it. He strove to see the others, but his mind shut down again.

The last thing Jackson heard, before darkness claimed him, was, "we’ll try drugs next."

_Damn_ , thought Jackson. _I hate needles_.

* * *

"That’s his car," O’Neill said grimly. "It looks as though he parked it here to avoid the paparazzi. Not a scratch on it."

"Yes, there is. Over here," Carter pointed out.

"That’s old. I told him to get it touched up. Thought he was going to have it done while he was out of town." O’Neill wasn’t smiling. "Guess he forgot."

Carter closed her eyes. "How are we going to find him, sir?"

"I’ve called in a few favors. People who owe me, over the years. They’re coming up dry, but still trying. For what it’s worth, it doesn’t sound like any of the world powers. That would have been fairly easy to trace."

"Is that good or bad?" Carter asked.

"Could be either. One of our competitors wouldn’t be as likely to kill him, but getting Daniel back would be pretty damn hard. They’ve got some good security."

"And if it’s a cult?"

"Let’s just get to him first, why don’t we?" O’Neill suggested.

* * *

The telephone number was what Jackson hung on to, didn’t let go. He could hear almost everything else sliding out past his unwilling lips: the name of the restaurant was Earl’s—how original—and that it was in a little town outside of Denver. Not too far from here, as it were, just by coincidence. But the phone number to the restaurant stayed inside. It wouldn’t be hard for them to call the place; just look it up in the directory, or call Directory Assistance and ask. But calling the telephone operator wasn’t part of their mind-set. Jackson was grateful, though he didn’t know why.

They’d untied his wrists so that they could roll up his sleeves and push something cold into his vein. Kidnapper had done that; he was the one with the expertise. The Man with the Attitude sat back and watched, and asked the questions: where was she, how did she look, had anyone hurt her? And over and over: where was she? Little by little they weaseled it out of him, dragging out all the details of the small town and the place that she worked. It took a while; Jackson didn’t know the name of the town, and they had to piece it together by the clues that he gave them, seeing McMahon’s Hardware Store across the street from Earl’s Bar and a single street sign demarking the intersection of Main and Hamilton. It was easier for him to describe Earl’s Bar, with its red-covered bar stools with the cracked plastic, and the local factory workers who came in every day around five before taking the rest of their paycheck home to their working spouse and the three kids desperate for an education and a way out of the squalor. The Man swore when he heard that she actually worked at a bar, seemed to think that Isabel should have been a patron at an upscale Starbucks when Jackson ‘saw’ her.

Jackson ‘saw’ the rest of it, too; the part that the Man refused to acknowledge, even to himself. He saw Isabel’s pretty childhood with all the nasty things carefully hidden away from her, saw the trips around the world, seeing the famous sites and collecting treasures to show the girl how much she was loved and wanted. And he ‘saw’ the trips to the marital bedroom the Man made, daughter in tow, when mother was out of town or with her friends. It started at a precocious eleven and paused briefly during summers spent away at a refined summer camp in Maine.

Jackson tried to hold back. Isabel had run away, had hidden herself shortly after her second year at college, brushing over her tracks so well that even her father, with all his resources, hadn’t yet been able to locate her. She was a bright girl, and a desperate one, and her best hopes knew better than to look for rescue from authorities who could either be bought or killed.

But the drugs they pumped into him were too powerful. He hovered on the razor sharp rim of consciousness, wanting to topple over but unable to resist. Every time he almost achieved total blackness they would bring him back. This condition facilitated what was left of Osiris’s accidental enabling of his telepathy; the less consciousness he retained, the more the thoughts would flow in. It wasn’t only Isabel’s mind he touched, but the rest of the people in the room with all their petty and not so petty crimes. Kidnapper had killed, did not like it, but would not hesitate to kill again should it become necessary. Oafs One and Two likewise had murdered at The Man’s behest. Jackson didn’t fool himself by believing that his own chances at survival were good.

A lot of minds were out there; there was another small town just outside the boarded up old mansion where this horrific scene was being played out. He skimmed over a two year old with a skinned knee, a twelve year old just dumped by her adolescent boyfriend who found basketball more enticing. There was Samantha Carter, her mind like a flame awash with brilliance—Jackson could have delved into the how’s and what’s of Stargate travel, but didn’t think he could keep up with the math—and beside her, like a rock, stood Teal’c; both searching for him, not knowing where to look.

And Colonel Jack O’Neill. Jack didn’t know it, but O’Neill’s own mind, to Jackson’s enhanced abilities, looked just as brilliant as Carter’s, in its own way. It didn’t contain the showy intellect that was able to decipher alien technology at a single bound but did possess the diamond-hard ability to wriggle through tactical dilemmas from underneath a dull covering. Right now, through all the fear, that mind was retrieving and discarding a hundred different plans for Jackson’s own rescue, searching through the possibilities for where the errant archeologist had gone to.

_I shall have to thank him_ , Jackson thought, and his brain drifted off once again.

* * *

Jacob Carter joined them in the search, calling upon his own resources. Having retired some years ago several of those sources had disappeared, but enough remained to add more information.

"We have to work fast," was his opening line. "What Selmac remembers of Nirti’s work says that the telepathy effect on Daniel’s mind isn’t going to last very long. We have to get to him soon, or every single one of we Tok’ra will never be permitted to rejoin the main group. In fact, we may all have to destroy ourselves, just to keep the Goa’uld spy from getting away."

"Dad!" Carter was horrified. "You can’t!"

"Not my first choice, kitten." Jacob patted her shoulder. "Jack, have you gotten anywhere?"

"It’s not the Russians, Chinese, Ukrainians or even the Columbian drug lords," O’Neill reported. "Nothing coming out of the Middle East. It sounds more local. That’s what I’m concentrating on."

"That sounds like you have something, Jack."

"Maybe." O’Neill paused. "I questioned the tabloid pencil-pushers. Several of ‘em remember seeing a dark sedan parked a few blocks away with a man hovering around. Most thought it was just another paparazzi, waiting for Daniel to get back home although they were surprised that the guy didn’t join them for coffee and a smoke. Fellow journalists, and all that." 

Samantha Carter snorted.

"So that has led me to my next step." O’Neill paused for effect.

Teal’c took the bait. "Which is?"

"Eye in the sky," Jacob said, grinning. Teal’c raised a puzzled eyebrow. 

Samantha Carter’s eye took on a gleam as she realized what they meant. "Satellite imaging. Pictures of people down on Earth."

O’Neill nodded, satisfied with the effect. "Down to the pores on the guy’s nose. I put some good people to work at getting those images. We should have an ID very soon. In fact," as his cell phone warbled, "this might be it."

It was, and it wasn’t. Hammond was on the other end.

"I have your identification, Colonel O’Neill." O’Neill held the phone slightly away from his ear so that the others could listen in. "A man who goes by the name of Nathan DeLauro. Well-known in some less than savory circles as a man who accomplishes tasks, and is well-paid to do so. Current whereabouts unknown, but believed to be in this region of the country."

"As we have just verified," O’Neill murmured.

"I have Intelligence looking in to who his last known associates were, and doing it with all possible haste. And, in case you speak with any of them, colonel, know that I have not shared information about, shall we say, Dr. Jackson’s newly acquired abilities. Let them believe this is the usual kidnapped scientist routine."

"Fine with me. You said you had more information?"

"Yes. Is Jacob Carter and Selmac with you?"

"Right here, George."

There was a pause on the other end. "Jacob, Selmac, there’s no easy way to tell you this. One of your colleagues was found dead less than an hour ago. Daria was alone in her quarters. When she didn’t show up, my people went looking for her. She had been garroted, and her neck broken. There was nothing her symbiont could do. I’m sorry, Jacob."

* * *

Alone. What a pleasure.

Alone in his mind. Alone outside his mind. His captors had all gone off somewhere, probably to track down Isabel. Jackson cringed involuntarily. It wasn’t as though he’d had a choice in the matter, giving The Man and Kidnapper her whereabouts. The drugs had completely bypassed his self-control, had him spouting out answers to almost every question they’d asked. The best he had been able to do was to mumble and try to conceal what he’d seen, though even that hadn’t helped. They simply hammered at him until they had all the information they wanted. But he still felt guilty.

It was a relief now, not listening to every other mind on Earth. Once again the ability to listen to every thought out there had faded away, leaving him with a welcome solitude. The after effects of the drugs were there in all their glory to mute his feeling of reprieve, with the mother of all head-aches, the inability to think clearly, and the gut-wrenching nausea—don’t think about that.

_  
_

Damn. Too late.

He was still tied up. Jackson ruefully felt for his hands—at least they’re in front, this time—and wondered how Jack O’Neill always managed to slip out of such predicaments with such ease. Jackson rubbed his wrists together. The ropes gave a little, just enough to scrub the skin off but not enough to release him. Even the blindfold was still there.

But it didn’t have to be. Jackson cursed the drugs that slowed his thinking to a mere crawl. With his hands in front he could remove the blindfold, and he did.

An improvement. He was in the formal parlor of an abandoned mansion, with two sofas and three over-stuffed chairs covered with sheets to protect them from the dust that accumulated over what looked to be several years. Jackson sneezed automatically. Heavy brocade drapes kept out both the light and the scenery. Overlarge dark framed pictures refused to display their occupants through the dimness, although he could make out a grand piano in the corner. _Let’s not trip over that one_ , he decided.

_  
_

Move. Find a phone. Escape. Sounded like a good idea. He rolled off the sofa, landing on the carpeted floor with a thump. He inch-wormed his way over to the small table that contained a phone, scarcely able to believe his luck. The phone number that he hadn’t given his captors still loomed clear in his mind. Jackson could call her first—time was of the essence for Isabel to run and hide again—and then call Jack O’Neill and the rest of SG-1 to come and bail him out of his predicament.

Jackson could hear O’Neill in his mind even without telepathy: _Again, Daniel? Can’t keep out of trouble, can you, Space Monkey?_

The phone was dead. No dial tone. No way to call out. Jackson collapsed back to the carpet, cursing to himself. Lady Luck wasn’t just chuckling at his predicament, she was laughing out loud with great guffaws.

Comes and goes, comes and goes. Other people’s thoughts crept back into his, overwhelming his own. He wasn’t able to think straight, not past all the other ideas running along in a stream of consciousness. Hell, he really didn’t need this telepathy thing again playing with his consciousness, not now. _Rotten timing, Jackson_.

There were two nearby, coming closer. Jackson moaned, unable to keep their thoughts out. It was the muscle men, attracted by the noise of him falling to the floor. Their minds were base, filled with simple and basic needs of food and lust and the sheer power of being able to wrest both from just about whomever they chose. Right now they were thinking of Jackson, wondering if they would have to pound on the archeologist to keep him quiet. Jackson tried to cringe back, tried to hide behind the sofa, keep out of their line of sight.

He realized the mistake he’d made as soon as they walked in. They spotted him after all of two seconds of looking around.

"Awake, Dr. Jackson? And no blindfold?"

* * *

"Our man DeLauro has been seen in the company of Robert Sparfelder, a prominent businessman in auto supply. He makes widgets for cars all over the world," O’Neill reported.

"Computer parts, to run the timing sequencing, put into a solid block for installation," Carter put in, looking over O’Neill’s shoulder at the flimsy that he held in his hand. "Where are they?"

"We’ve got two possibilities," O’Neill announced. "There’s a factory in town, and Sparfelder also owns some property just north of that town. He has a number of residences all over the country and keeps a small apartment in Tokyo, but it’s more realistic to assume that if he has Daniel, it’ll be one of those two."

"But why would he want Daniel?" Samantha wanted to know. "Clearly it’s not for Daniel’s archeological wisdom, and most businessmen tend to scoff at psychics. What would an auto parts manufacturer want with that?"

"Given the timing of the kidnapping, I think we can safely assume that he thinks that Daniel is telepathic, Sammy," Jacob said, "and dollars to donuts that’s the reason. Have you dug up anything more on this Sparfelder character, Jack?"

"As a matter of fact, I have." The sarcasm was habit, to cover up a bad case of nerves. "Not a nice man to deal with. None of his suppliers will say anything more pleasant than he drives a hard bargain. I saw several names on his employee roles that my contacts assure me have graced the mug books in several precinct houses in the region. But, and this is the important part, children, he had a daughter. An only child."

"Had?" Samantha Carter caught the inflection.

"Right. Girl disappeared two months into her sophomore year of college. That was almost a year ago. Just dropped out, left, packed her bags, and vanished. Left no forwarding address."

"Kidnapped?"

"Not if she packed her bags. Wife divorced Sparfelder shortly thereafter."

"And—?" Jacob prompted.

"Rumors only, Jacob. Rumors that include things like incest, abortion, abuse. A whole bunch of nasty habits. The divorce hearing was closed and the records sealed. Wife got enough to live very comfortably on for the rest of her natural existence. Which, amazingly enough, turned out to be very short."

Teal’c raised an eyebrow.

"Wife was found murdered in her penthouse apartment in Manhattan," O’Neill explained. "No evidence linking the crime to her bereaved ex-husband, and certainly no reason to believe that he was involved, or even gave the order."

"Right," Carter said. "Nice guy. So you think he wants Daniel to track down his daughter telepathically. What happens if Daniel’s abilities fade away?"

"Let’s hope that Daniel can made up something with that fabulous brain of his long enough for us to even the odds." O’Neill handed Jacob a slip of paper. "This is the address for Sparfelder’s factory, and here’s a PR shot of Sparfelder himself. You and Sam check it out."

"The other picture is of his daughter Isabel?" Sam asked.

O’Neill nodded. "It’s a little old, but it’s the best I could get. I don’t expect her to be anywhere near here, but if Sparfelder has gotten lucky, you’ll want to know who you’re dealing with. You go ahead. Teal’c and I’ll see what’s going on in the north forty."

* * *

Samantha Carter peered at the opened up security device outside the entrance to Sparfelder’s factory. It was dark with autumn’s early bedtime, the sun all but hidden behind the mountains. The factory was closed up for the night, the workers having departed almost an hour ago and Sparfelder hadn’t bothered with a security guard, deciding that his electronic surveillance was adequate for his purposes. For the most part he was right. The factory hadn’t been burgled for the last six years, which was how long the electronic device had been in place. 

Sparfelder reckoned without taking Samantha Carter into account.

"Nice work, kitten," Jacob said admiringly. "You learn to do that in school?"

Sam smiled weakly. "Jack O’Neill."

Jacob looked puzzled. "Jack O’Neill taught you how to disable an electronic lock? The same Jack O’Neill who thinks that pouring coffee into a computer’s guts to short it out is a boon to mankind?"

"No, Dad. He just provided the opportunity for me to figure it out on the fly."

Jacob snorted. "That sounds more like him." They pushed inside, using flashlights to navigate through the area.

It was quiet inside. They did a quick but thorough search, pausing only in the main offices to try to learn what they could. There was nothing; whatever Sparfelder was up to with Nathan DeLauro, it didn’t involve Sparfelder’s factory. They left, Sam closing up the surveillance device. No one would ever know that they had been there.

Halfway to the car Sam halted them. "Dad, wait."

"Kitten?"

"Look over there. Is that—?"

"Yeah," Jacob confirmed. "Sparfelder. And DeLauro. What are they doing here?"

"Let’s find out."

To the Carters’ surprise, neither one went toward the factory. Instead, the pair parked their car in the enclosed lot, far from the lights in a dark back corner, and headed out onto the street leaving the car behind. Wordlessly, the Carters exchanged a puzzled glance, and followed.

* * *

"What’s that light doing on in a boarded up old mansion?" O’Neill asked rhetorically.

"I believe that it indicates the presence of malfeasants, Colonel O’Neill."

"Thanks, Teal’c."

"You are welcome, Colonel O’Neill."

* * *

"If Sparfelder can do it, so can I," Oaf Number One growled.

"He didn’t say to kill him."

"We’re gonna have to anyway. He took off the blindfold."

"I was drugged and half out of my mind," Jackson quickly pointed out. "Any identification won’t hold up in court." _At least the first part of my story is true. And assuming that any of this goes to court._

Oaf Number One had an almost comically earnest look on his face. "I gotta know about my Maudie."

"Oh, jeez," Number Two moaned. "Haven’t you dumped that broad yet? She’s nothin’ but trouble for you."

"Yeah, but what a piece of tail!" Oaf Number One turned back to Jackson. "Look, I gotta know if my Maudie is steppin’ out on me. She ain’t been home all the time, and I been catchin’ her smilin’ and hummin’ when she don’t think I notice. I gotta know!"

"Sorry." Jackson shrugged. "My mind’s a blank." It was the truth.

"Yeah? Let’s see if this helps."

It didn’t. Jackson spit out a wad of blood, and hoped that no teeth went with it.

"C’mon, you!" Number One grabbed his arm and hauled him up, the better to pound Jackson’s face. Flesh contacted flesh.

_  
_

Maudie was not a beautiful woman but she radiated a sexual vitality that drew every male, and several female, eyes to her every time she walked into a room. She did that now, and removed several pieces of clothing, one by one, slowly and in time to the langorous music that seeped through the smoky haze. Tongues hung out.

"I see her!" Jackson cried out. The fist halted.

"Where is she?"

"In a strip joint," Jackson said, eyes closed. All he could see was the bumping and grinding that Maudie was doing, the hungry thoughts of the men around her, the jealousy of the other strippers. Money flowed onto the stage in small and large denominations.

"You’re lying!" The hand clutching his arm clenched tight.

"It’s the back room of Johnny’s Place," Jackson groaned. His head pounded, and his gut threatened to turn itself inside out. He felt hot and cold at the same time, and recognized the symptoms: his blood pressure was dropping, and he was going into shock. Did this happen every time his brain did the telepathic two-step? Jackson would be pleased to live without it.

Number One shook him. "More!"

Jackson’s head rattled. "There isn’t any more. She’s there. Earning money."

With an exclamation of disgust, Number One flung him down. Jackson crashed into an end table which splintered and broke beneath him. He lay there, stunned. The vision seemed more vivid than ever, the scene wavering blackly around the edges.

"Where are you going?"

"To get Maudie. Where else?"

"What about him?"

"Kill ‘im when the boss gets back with his daughter." Oaf Number One wrenched open the door, ready to go after his errant girlfriend.

And walked right into Teal’c’s fist. He went down like the Titanic.

Oaf Number Two went for his gun. Teal’c grabbed hold of his wrist and twisted. The gun dropped. So did the man. Teal’c growled; he was thoroughly annoyed by the whole situation and wanted a better fight.

O’Neill stepped in over the body of the first. "You didn’t leave any for me," he complained. He re-holstered his gun, and hustled to Jackson. "Daniel? You all right?"

Jackson mumbled something incoherent.

"I’ll take that as a bright and shining no." O’Neill sliced through the ropes. "Teal’c, give me a hand. They drugged him."

Jackson mumbled once more.

"Say again?"

"Get me a damn phone!" Jackson had to concentrate to make the words come out. "You’ve got to call her! Her father’s after her!"

"We know, Daniel. Can you stand?"

"The phone!" Jackson insisted. "I told them where she was!"

"We’ll call the local cops." O’Neill tried to reassure him.

"No. Now!" Jackson begged. O’Neill’s thoughts were crystal clear, and they all said that Jackson wasn’t getting through. He tried again. "Isabel’s father knows where she is. The cops won’t get there in time. You have to call her. Please, Jack! Trust me, just this once!"

"Hell of a lot more times than once," O’Neill grumbled. Jackson could read the thoughts easily: call the girl, just to calm the archeologist down before Jackson lost it all together. It didn’t matter what O’Neill thought. What mattered was that there was a fully-powered cell phone not three inches away in O’Neill’s jacket pocket. Jackson gave O’Neill the phone number, had to repeat it three times before he could make himself understood.

"Make this fast, Daniel," O’Neill warned. "You’ve got a date with several Tok’ra and an undercover Goa’uld."

* * *

"That looks suspiciously like Isabel Sparfelder," Jacob Carter observed. They’d gone inside a place called Earl’s Bar to warm up. It wasn’t winter yet, but the night air was cold. "Right size, right age. Sounds like Jack called it right."

"Do you think we should approach her? Her father is right outside."

Jacob watched intently, along with his own daughter. "Hmm. She just put down the phone. Think she got tipped off that her father is coming? Following the appropriate script: looks scared. Scans the room frantically, doesn’t see who or what she’s looking for. So far, so good. Oops, in come Daddy Dearest."

"Whereupon fair Isabel makes a beeline for the exit, Daddy on her tail. That man along with Daddy looks like the picture Colonel O’Neill showed us of Daniel’s kidnapper. Think we ought to intervene? I don’t think I like those men very much."

"After you, kitten."

They hustled out the front entrance and rounded the corners to get to the back exit. It was dark; the sole streetlight was making a valiant effort to stay alive against all the longevity odds. Despite the lack of illumination it wasn’t difficult to see the trio. DeLauro stood back while Sparfelder pinned his daughter up against the cold brick wall. The naked terror on her face was plain.

"You thought you could walk out on me, Isabel? After all I’ve done for you?"

Jacob Carter sauntered into the light. "Don’t you mean, everything you’ve done _to_ her?"

"Whoever you are, you don’t want to be here. Leave, before you regret not taking my advice. This doesn’t concern you."

"Oh, but it does," Jacob corrected. "You see, I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror if I didn’t stop you right here."

"Take care of him, DeLauro." Sparfelder’s attention was all on his daughter who was quivering in terror in his grasp.

There was a gurgling sound of surprise from that direction, and a barely visible blonde head appeared behind DeLauro’s shoulder, lights glinting off the gun barrel stuck in the man’s back. "That is _so_ not going to happen, Mr. Sparfelder," Sam said, lethality echoing in every tone. "In fact, you’re going to release her, and she’s going to walk out of here with us. Isn’t that right?"

Isabel took advantage of her father’s shock to slip out from under his grasp, sidling around to Jacob. The Tok’ra put her behind him, his own gun shining with metallic blue sparks.

"Now, both of you turn around and face the wall," he instructed them. "Count to ten. I know you can do it without taking off your shoes. Come after us, and you’ll both end up someplace unique. Oh, and by the way, this is something that’s been owed to you for far too long." Jacob swung Sparfelder around, hauled back, and delivered a solid right punch to Sparfelder’s eye. The man went down as though pole-axed.

"Stay right where you are," Sam warned DeLauro. The kidnapper shook his head in acquiescence; he had been paid to find Sparfelder’s daughter by whatever means, not to take a beating for his employer.

Jacob took Isabel’s arm without ever looking at her, guiding her away from the pair. Sam too backed away, her gun in position. "Come on, Ms. Sparfelder. They’re not going to wait very long, and you need to gather up your things."

The girl tried to pull away. "Who are you?"

Jacob hustled her along. "You know how people get rescued by mysterious strangers only in badly written made-for-TV movies?"

"Yes."

"Where do you think the idea came from? Outer space?"

Sam winced.

Her cell phone warbled, breaking the moment. She tabbed it on. "Carter."

"Carter? We got him. He’s pretty upset about Sparfelder’s daughter, insisted on calling her as soon as we pulled him out. He’s still pretty out of it, wants to go looking for her. I need you to track down a bar called—"

"Earl’s, yes, I know, sir. Already taken care of. Tell him that she’s with us, safe and sound." Carter paused. "Uh, what do you want us to do with her, sir?"

"How the hell would I know, Carter? I don’t suppose you can just put her back where you found her."

"You think George would like a new secretary?" Jacob put in, waggling his eyebrows. "I know I would." He winced. "Selmac disagrees. Not his type."

"What, not small and wriggly? We’ll meet you back at the base."

* * *

"He’s fine," Frasier reported reluctantly. "I can’t find anything wrong with him. Aside from the fact that he’s been beaten and drugged, that is." She stepped back from the infirmary stretcher, thinking to herself that the archeologist had been spending entirely too much time there recently.

"Just what I’ve been telling you," Jackson insisted, jumping off the stretcher with a little too much exuberance just to demonstrate how fine he was. "I’m fine."

"Now say that without my wondering if your face is going to fall off," O’Neill grumbled. "Is your jaw broken?"

"Would I be talking if it were?"

"Probably. You’ve got a bruise the size of Cincinnati. Now do your mind-reading thing and let’s get Jacob and the others home to where ever their hidden base is."

"Right. How do I do that?" Jackson cocked his head with an entirely reasonable air.

"What do you mean, Daniel?" O’Neill’s blood ran cold. Beside him, General Hammond stiffened.

"I mean, how do I turn it on? I’m not exactly in control of this stuff, you know. It’s been coming and going. And recently it’s mostly been going." Jackson didn’t look happy. "I’m sorry, Jacob, but I have to be honest. The last thoughts I had that weren’t my own was back in the mansion, when that goon grabbed me."

Glum silence.

General Hammond broke it. "Jacob, you said that Nirti had done some experimenting with this mind-reading thing. What do you remember? Anything that could help us?"

Jacob bowed his head, and when he looked up, it was Selmac that was speaking. "Very little, George. Typical Goa’uld, Nirti did not share her findings. Only a small amount leaked out, and that open to doubt. She experimented with various types of stimuli on her subjects, most of which I couldn’t support in the present situation."

"Stimuli?" Jackson asked with trepidation.

"Various types of radiation, manual stimulation of nerve endings, most of which was unpleasant to her subjects in the extreme." Jacob took pity on the archeologist. "Of course, Nirti might just have deliberately let that rumor move around, just to keep her slaves in line."

"Why do I not believe that?" Jackson looked lost, then his face took on a determined look. "Jacob, I’m not going to let you Tok’ra kill yourselves. Do whatever you think will get this telepathy thing going."

"Within reason," O’Neill slipped in.

Jacob said grimly, "Daniel, most of Nirti’s subjects died. Horribly, painfully, and not always quickly. None of us would agree to that." He sighed. "Well, that’s it. I’ll tell the others. If Daniel can’t tell which one of us is the traitor, maybe someone else can come with a solution. The loss of a dozen Tok’ra on mere suspicion alone doesn’t thrill me. Especially since I’ll be one of them."

"Wait a minute, Dad." Samantha Carter halted him. "Daniel, you said it was when that man grabbed you that you perceived his thoughts. Could it be that you need to be touching someone to do it? That skin to skin contact is the key?"

"Couldn’t be," O’Neill put in waspishly. "Trust me, there was no skin to skin contact between Daniel and me when he picked up on my thoughts about that kid in the mine shaft. Nor with the kid, for that matter, or his parents."

"On the other hand, it couldn’t hurt to try." Jacob grabbed Daniel’s shoulder, putting his other hand on the archeologist’s bare neck.

"Hey, your hands are cold," Jackson started to protest when he suddenly paled. Sweat broke out across his brow, and he sagged into Teal’c’s waiting hands. The Jaffa lowered his teammate to the stretcher, while O’Neill lifted the man’s legs up.

"Daniel?"

"Jacob is not the spy," Jackson muttered. "Damn, I hate this!"

Frasier wrapped a BP cuff around his arm, firing up the automatic machine which instantly complained at the low readings. "Don’t try to get up, Daniel. Just lie still. Well, folks, I guess we have our answer. Tactile stimuli is definitely part of the equation."

"Great," Jackson groaned, shivering. "I feel sick."

"I’m not surprised. You’re supposed to feel that way when you’re going into shock. You’ll feel better in a few moments; your pressure is coming back up." Frasier watched the machine take another reading, snarling less loudly at the results.

"Liar."

"Read my mind, Daniel. It takes a few moments."

Jackson buried his face in his hands, trying to push the thoughts out, to keep the cacophony of ideas and strong emotions from overwhelming him. "Stop thinking so loudly. Everybody, stop thinking at me."

"Better get the rest of you Tok’ra in here," O’Neill told Jacob. "He’s cranky, and I don’t know how much more of this I can take."

"More than that." Jacob was already on the move. "We don’t know how long this will last."

* * *

"C’mon, Daniel." O’Neill didn’t know if he was irritated with his teammate, the Tok’ra, or Nirti who hadn’t even shown her snaky face. Just thinking about that Goa’uld was enough to turn his stomach. "Think harder."

"I’m trying," Jackson told him. "It’s not working." He glared at the three Tok’ra staring at him expectantly. "Stop looking at me."

O’Neill tried to take a gentler approach. "Daniel, you’re being pawed by three lovely ladies. What man wouldn’t like that, even if they have snakes inside?" One of the Tok’ra threw him a dirty look.

"This clearly is a waste of time," one said, the Tok’ra in ascendance. "The Nirti effect has worn off. Find another way to determine which of us is the traitor."

"Easier said than done," O’Neill told her. "Got any bright ideas?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Surely you don’t expect us to do it? The one who comes up with the solution might be the traitor."

"In which case, the solution would be a trap rather than the desired solution," Teal’c acknowledged.

"Hey. Which side are you on?"

"I am on the side of SG-1, O’Neill."

"However…" The Tok’ra let her voice trail off suggestively.

"Don’t be coy, Doran," Jacob/Selmac said. "It’s not becoming."

Doran flashed her fellow Tok’ra a look of malice. "Were I Tau’re, I would begin by examining all the data regarding the episodes. What symptoms both preceded and occurred during the telepathic episodes? That might precipitate an answer. But whatever you determine, do it quickly. Obviously the Nirti effect is wearing off. You may be able to go home, Selmac, with clearance from your Tau’re friends, but we others are not so fortunate. Encourage your playmates to play more quickly."

Samantha jumped in before the Tok’ra could set off a verbal war between the races. "She’s right. We need to look at all the evidence that we can. We’ve already established that skin contact facilitates Daniel’s telepathy. What else have we seen? Daniel?"

Jackson grimaced. "I usually feel like crap before, during, and after the thoughts come crashing in. And I don’t have any control over the process. Whoever is in the vicinity, I can hear them thinking, and frequently it’s at the top of their lungs. Sort of. I mean, I know they’re not really talking, or shouting, but it sounds that way. Or ‘thinks’ that way. It’s like being at a really bad heavy metal concert and not being allowed to cover your ears. And the worse the thought, the louder it is. It’s enough to drive you insane." He shuddered. "And they come in all different languages, most of which I speak. So that doesn’t help."

Sam turned to Janet. "Daniel says that he feels bad just before. Why?"

Dr. Frasier frowned. "I would assume it’s because his brain isn’t accustomed to processing all this information. But, Sam, medical science has very little information on this sort of phenomenon, and what we do have is suspect."

"No, go back even before that. Daniel gets sick before the telepathy thing kicks in. He looks like he’s going to pass out. What is happening in that time period?"

Frasier nodded. "You’re right; he’s usually on the verge of shock." She began to see what Sam was getting at, began to get excited. "He gets pale, he begins to sweat, he becomes weak; all very classic signs of impending shock, otherwise known as lack of circulation. Mentation decreases, confusion is common, as is nausea and vomiting. If it continues, there is loss of consciousness." She sounded like she was reciting from a text voice, but her tone was far too eager.

Sam grinned. "Sound familiar, Daniel?"

" _Oh_ , yeah. Except for the loss of consciousness stuff. That doesn’t come soon enough to keep the voices out of my head."

Sam turned back to Janet. "And all this is because his blood pressure drops."

"That’s right. There are several causes of low blood pressure: traumatic blood loss, cardiogenic shock, neurogenic shock—"

"Low blood pressure," Sam interrupted. Frasier could be as verbose as Jackson when she got going. "Could you induce low blood pressure in Daniel?"

"Not without violating my Hippocratic Oath. That’s not exactly a healthy practice."

"But you could do it?" Sam persisted.

Frasier nodded. "There are certain medications that can lower blood pressure, but they are tricky to use. I would need to keep him on the verge of consciousness, if what you’re thinking is correct. Too far, and his heart will stop."

They all looked at Dr. Jackson, who again looked acutely uncomfortable at being the center of attention.

Selmac/Jacob shook his head. "It is too risky. I cannot ask you to endanger yourself for us. You have already done much for the Tok’ra race."

"I can," Doran disagreed. "This is my life at stake; mine, and ten other Tok’ra. I certainly do ask it. One life, against eleven. A reasonable risk."

O’Neill was nettled. "Sure, if you’re not the one taking it."

"I’ll do it."

They looked back at the subject of their argument. 

Jackson nodded again. "I’ll do it. Janet, you’ve pulled me out of worse; I’ll put my faith in you again." He shrugged, trying to make light of his decision. "Okay, Jack, it’s up to you. What concessions can you wring out of the Tok’ra over this? A new toy for Sam to play with?"

It was Jacob again. "You don’t have to do this, Daniel."

"Yes, he does," Doran interjected. "He has agreed to it, Selmac. Let him keep his word."

"Doc?" O’Neill wasn’t going to let the Tok’ra have the last word.

Janet Frasier sighed, a here-we-go-again puff of air. "All right. But you’ll be on a monitor, Dr. Jackson, with IV’s to rescue you if this goes sour." She called over her shoulder, "bring the crash cart over, Becky. The Daniel Jackson special, if you please."

More than one set of shoulders cringed.

* * *

"You’re wired for sound, Daniel," O’Neill observed. "I didn’t know Frasier could put so many monitors on one human body."

"That’s because you’re usually unconscious when they’re attached to you, Jack." Jackson shivered. "Damn, that stuff is cold. Couldn’t you warm it up before squirting it into my arm?"

"You’re cold because you’re going into shock." Frasier kept her attention on her monitors. "The IV’s are room temperature."

"You took away my shirt, you made me take off my pants, at least you could give me a blanket."

"The purpose here is to put you into shock over my objections, not keep you comfortable, Dr. Jackson," Frasier told him tartly. "Let’s hope this works quickly, so that I can get these drugs out of your system."

"Umm." All present could tell that his mind was shutting down with the loss of circulation.

Or perhaps not. Doran stepped forward without being asked and took hold of Jackson’s shoulder. Jackson jerked in shock, and moaned.

"Too many voices!" His own voice was anguished. "Get them out of my head! Shut up!"

"Am I the traitor, Dr. Jackson?" Doran hissed. "Am I?" She shook him. "Am I?"

Jackson hesitated. They could see the naked fear on his face, the horrifying thoughts that were passing through, tormenting him. "No!" he whispered, trying to keep it from being a whimper. "No."

"It is working," Teal’c said. "Get the others here swiftly. This may not last."

"They’re right outside," Hammond said, trying to keep his bulk out of the way in the small infirmary. It was crowded; SG-1 had refused to leave their teammate alone and the place was standing room only. Hammond had prudently insisted on having armed security men standing by; they were dealing with a Tok’ra traitor whom they could assume would react in a violent fashion once discovered. 

One by one the rest of the Tok’ra filed in. Frasier made innumerable small adjustments to the crystal clear medication dripping into Jackson’s arm, the monitors beeping a slow but steady accompaniment to the muttered phrases issuing forth in a multitude of languages from the victim. Once Sam thought she recognized some Russian, and Frasier was convinced that she heard French. Teal’c even responded comfortingly in Goa’uld. The majority of thoughts were not pleasant. Only once or twice did a fleeting smile cross Jackson’s face, only to be immediately replaced by tears as darker images carried the day.

Each Tok’ra took hold of the archeologist, and Jackson sooner or later took notice and resolved them of guilt. Once he opened his eyes to look at the Tok’ra, bright blue orbs not quite focusing, and said, "Xorad has forgiven you. You should forgive yourself." The Tok’ra stumbled out of the infirmary, hastily wiping moisture from his host’s eye.

Frasier looked at the clock. "He’s been down twenty minutes. We need to finish this up, people. We’re risking renal shut down here. For those of you who are non-medical, that translates as very bad."

"Only two more, doctor," Hammond reassured her. "Jacob, who’s next?"

"Pejas," Jacob/Selmac called. The room was getting nervous. With only two left, the possibilities were narrowing. Both security guards tightened their grips on their weapons, not certain if they would work against a Tok’ra, or, rather, a Goa’uld spy. "Skartenen. Both of you come in here."

O’Neill silently applauded Selmac’s ingenuity. By bringing both in at once, Selmac had just doubled the number of Tok’ra that the Goa’uld spy would have to fight through. For obviously it had to be one of these two. Jackson had cleared all of the others.

Both hosts were male, big enough that Teal’c would have to expend more than the usual effort to subdue. With the crowd in here, it ought to have been enough, but…

"Who’s going first?" O’Neill asked in a mock-pleasant tone. The stakes were high. "No waiting, folks."

Pejas stepped forward. "I am innocent. I have nothing to fear." He confidently grasped Jackson’s arm.

Jackson’s face smoothed over, relief evident at the flood of non-threatening thoughts. "Cleared," he murmured, just barely audible.

Skartenen blanched. "Not possible," he choked out. "Selmac, you know me! I have lived among you for decades! I am no spy! The Tau’re is wrong!"

"Then prove it," Selmac told him, deep tones even more threatening. "Daniel will not accuse you unjustly. If he cannot detect the traitor among us, if the ribbon device’s effect have already worn off, then he will exonerate you as he has the rest of us, and we will be back to square one. Step forward, Skartenen."

Several security rifles snapped into position, aimed squarely at the trembling Tok’ra. Skartenen gulped; he had no choice. He stepped forward.

"Take Daniel’s arm." O’Neill watched him closely. "Skin to skin contact. Make it good. I want to hear Daniel tell me you’re innocent."

Skartenen did. Jackson moaned, the flood of alien thoughts washing over him. Then—

"Traitor!"

Skartenen was ready for the accusation. In a lightening swift maneuver, he changed direction to seize Jackson by the throat, bodily lifting him from the stretcher and dangling Jackson in front of him as a human shield. Jackson slumped bonelessly in the Tok’ra’s grasp, consciousness fleeing. 

Four security guns snapped to the shoulder, taking a bead on Skartenen, Jackson in the direct line of fire.

"Shoot," Skartenen hissed, "and the Tau’re dies! It will be a service to the Goa’uld!"

"Hold your fire!" O’Neill shouted. "Let him go!"

"Let him go, Skartenen," Selmac echoed. "There is no escape. Let the Tau’re go, and you live."

"Back away, Selmac." It was clear that Selmac was the only being there that Skartenen considered a threat; Selmac and Pejas. The Goa’uld spy might have been right; only the Tok’ra had the superhuman strength that a blended being possessed. "I will break this one’s neck."

"Do that, and I will rip you from your host’s body myself!" Selmac growled, trying to edge closer.

"I can drill him through the eye, Colonel," one of the security guards offered grimly, his gun clenched to his cheek, sighting down the barrel.

"Hold your fire!" O’Neill repeated. Just a hair off, and Earth would be minus one highly brilliant and eccentric archeologist. _Good thing Daniel isn’t awake enough to understand what’s being said._

Teal’c came up from behind, grabbing two Goa’uld fingers that were wrapped around Jackson’s neck, and pulled. It didn’t take strength, just finesse. O’Neill heard the audible _click_ as both fingers snapped, and the Goa’uld gasped in sudden shock and pain. His hand fell away from Jackson’s neck.

Enraged, Skartenen howled. A single blow, and Teal’c went flying into Frasier’s best equipment. Frasier’s own cry was composed of equal parts fear for Teal’c, fear for herself, fear for her patient, anger over the damaged machines— _I already blew my budget for this year_!—and fear for what other human damage was about to occur. Skartenen dove onto Jackson, intent on dismembering him before the others could subdue him.

Blood spattered the floor.

* * *

"I am sorry for your loss," Doran said to General Hammond, her deep Tok’ra tones sonorous in the briefing room. All the Tok’ra had gathered there prior to departure to home, the location of which Selmac and the others steadfastly refused to share with O’Neill and the others. "Dr. Jackson was a brave man, and highly skilled in his work. His sacrifice shall not go unremarked."

"Thank you." Hammond seemed to be having trouble with his voice. "We all miss him." He struggled to get himself under control. 

"We would not impose on your hospitality any longer," Doran continued. "It would be best if we left at once. We have tasks that await us. Would you conduct us to your Stargate?" She looked around. "Where is Selmac? He is delaying our departure."

"I’m right here, Doran." Jacob stepped into the room.

"You are tardy, Selmac. School your host to proper decorum. Just because his genetic offspring is here is no reason to linger."

"Don’t think that’s the reason he’s lingering." O’Neill stepped in behind him. "Daniel?"

He might not have been kicking, but Dr. Daniel Jackson was most certainly alive. Face pale but determined, Jackson walked into the briefing room, escorted by Samantha Carter and Teal’c. They solicitously seated him before his already wobbly knees could give out.

The Tok’ra buzzed. Doran’s mouth dropped open. "Selmac? What is this farce? Why have you deceived us about Dr. Jackson?"

"No farce, Doran." It was Jacob Carter speaking, not Selmac, and O’Neill suspected that Samantha’s father did it half to annoy the arrogant woman. "A trap, neatly sprung."

"A trap? What are you talking about? You have already caught Skartenen by provoking Dr. Jackson’s fading telepathic abilities." Doran then opted for puzzlement. "Have you elicited further thoughts from him that you must share? You can do this once we are safely home, Selmac. You need not share them with the Tau’re."

"No, I think now will do just fine," Jacob said. "Daniel?"

Jackson cleared his throat. "When Selmac told us that there was a traitor among the Tok’ra, he was only half right. There wasn’t just one traitor. There were two." He waited for the terrified buzz to die down. "That’s right, two Goa’uld spies, working in conjunction with each other. I suspect it was only coincidence that both came on this mission but once in this predicament, the pair devised a plan. They knew that there was no easy way out, so they made preparations that one would be caught and the other go free to notify the Goa’uld system lords of the whereabouts of the Tok’ra base. Knowledge of that location was vital for the traitors to take back. With that information the system lords would be able to wipe out the Tok’ra in a single, decisive blow. One would sacrifice themself in order that the other escape."

"Then who is the other spy?" Pejas wanted to know. "We have all passed through Dr. Jackson’s telepathic interrogation. He cleared us all but for Skartenen."

"Not exactly," O’Neill put in. "Oh, yes, he cleared you to your face. And he fingered the second traitor. Skartenen was guilty as hell."

"I got to read your thoughts," Jackson clarified. "All your thoughts, not just what you wanted me to see. And it wasn’t pleasant. I know all about your petty feuds, your not so subtle attempts to influence each other." He took a deep breath, getting hold of himself. "It was a clever ploy. Two traitors, working together against the Tok’ra. One of you presented yourself early, figuring that if I caught you, the witch hunt would end and the second go free. If the first made it through unscathed, then the other would as well."

"Which was why the Tok’ra Skartenen was so distressed," Teal’c observed. "He expected to be cleared, as was his compatriot."

"Yeah. Distressed." Jackson fingered the vicious looking bruise on his throat where Skartenen had vented his distress. He coughed, clearing his throat again. "Unfortunately for the Goa’uld, I was able to read the entire plan. So I let the first go through, so that I could nail the second." He winced, and coughed again. "Not as smart as I’d’ve liked. I almost didn’t get the opportunity to speak again."

"You almost didn’t get the opportunity to speak _ever_ again," O’Neill put in with a grin. "Not that I’m complaining about a little peace and quiet from your direction, mind you. You could’ve warned us."

"No, I couldn’t. Janet Frasier’s drugs are tough to beat."

Samantha Carter patted Jackson’s shoulder reassuringly. "Go on, Daniel."

Jackson obeyed. "It was the best shot they had. And it would have worked." He glanced behind him. "In case I didn’t say it before, Teal’c: thanks."

"You did not, but Colonel O’Neill, Major Carter, Generals Carter and Hammond, and Selmac have been most effusive on your behalf."

"Don’t keep us in suspense," Pejas snarled. "Who is it?"

"Yes, who is it?" O’Neill jumped in. "All we know is that it was someone who went before Skartenen." He paused for a beat. "You went before Skartenen. In fact, you went _just_ before Skartenen. Was it you?"

The other Tok’ra backed away from Pejas. Actually, they all started backing away from each other, trying to distance themselves from any possible traitor, afraid of what the Goa’uld spy would do. They eyed each other suspiciously.

If he didn’t know that Tok’ra didn’t do such things, O’Neill would’ve sworn that Pejas was foaming at the mouth in terror.

"It’s not me!" Pejas screeched. "Selmac, please believe me! It’s not me! The Tau’re is mistaken!"

"That’s right, Pejas," Selmac said. "It’s not you. Is it, Daniel?"

"No, it’s not Pejas." That Tok’ra nearly collapsed with relief, though the statement did little to assuage the terror of the rest. Jackson surveyed the remainder coolly. "No, it’s not Pejas," he repeated, casting his gaze upon each one. If he didn’t know better, O’Neill would’ve sworn that Jackson still had his telepathic powers.

_  
_

But those powers were gone—weren’t they?

"No, it’s not Pejas," Jackson said one last time. "Is it, Doran?"

Was it O’Neill’s imagination, or did cornered Goa’uld spies fight worse than cornered rats? And it wasn’t fair; Selmac could put Jacob Carter’s arm back together in a matter of minutes and blocked the nerves that carried the accompanying sensations to the brain. It took Frasier over an hour to come up with a pain cocktail that would allow O’Neill to touch his foot to the ground without his knee threatening to go AWOL.

* * *

"Thanks, Daniel. We owe you one," Jacob Carter said, standing on the ramp to the Stargate. "That was a tremendous risk you took. What if you’d been wrong?"

"Aren’t you glad that I wasn’t?" Jackson neatly sidestepped the question.

Samantha wouldn’t let him. "No, really, Daniel. What was it that made you suspect Doran?"

"Nothing, actually. It could have been any of them." Jackson shrugged.

"You didn’t remember anything?"

"Sam, when I was reading their minds, I was barely conscious. I was lucky that I got a whisper of their plot. Janet keeps telling me that I don’t remember a lot of what happens when she pumps me full of whatever. So I took a guess, and it turned out right." He hunched his shoulders with his patented Jackson charm. "If I’d’ve been wrong, she wouldn’t have attacked anyone trying to get away. Look at Pejas; he was all but accused, and all he did was yell and talk about being innocent. Doran went on the offensive."

"I see," O’Neill said in a tone that said he understood anything but. "You did it by using Goa’uld psychology."

"Exactly!" Jackson beamed. Selmac raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

O’Neill let everyone know exactly what he thought of that explanation:

"Hah!"

**The End**

  


* * *

> © December 2004 The characters mentioned in this   
>  story are the property of Showtime and Gekko Film Corp. The Stargate, SG-I,   
>  the Goa'uld and all other characters who have appeared in the series STARGATE   
>  SG-1 together with the names, titles and backstory are the sole copyright   
>  property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Gekko Film Corp, Glassner/Wright   
>  Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd. Partnership. This   
>  fanfic is not intended as an infringement upon those rights and solely meant   
>  for entertainment. All other characters, the story idea and the story itself   
>  are the sole property of the author. 

* * *

  


_http://www.stargatefan.com_


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